Machiavelli on leadership
Describe what you are leading through, or just name the topic. You will get the exact passage from The Prince that fits.
Strip away the reputation for ruthlessness and a surprising amount of The Prince is about judgment rather than force: who you keep close, whose advice you let in, and how you are read by the people you lead. Machiavelli treats leadership as a problem of perception and counsel at least as much as one of power. Name what you are facing above to find the line that fits.
You are read by who is around you
The first measure people take of a leader, Machiavelli writes, is the quality of the people he surrounds himself with. Capable, loyal people signal a capable leader; the wrong ones signal the opposite, and the very first error a ruler makes is in the choosing. Long before anyone judges your decisions, they are judging your roster.
The trouble with flatterers
Courts fill with flatterers, he warns, and the only guard against them is to make plain that the truth does not offend you, while being careful that open season on honesty does not erode respect. His sharper point follows: good advice does not make a leader wise. A leader's wisdom is what makes advice good in the first place. The judgment has to be yours; counsel only sharpens it.
Seeming and being
Machiavelli is unembarrassed that people judge by what they see far more than by what is true, and that a leader who ignores how things look is being naive, not noble. This is not a license to be hollow. It is a reminder that perception is part of the job, and that managing how you are read is not separate from leading well.
Notable lines on leadership
The first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him.
There is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you.
Therefore it must be inferred that good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels.
Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.
Bring it to Machiavelli directly
The quote is the start. Tell Machiavelli what is actually going on and get his read on it, in a real conversation.
Speak with Machiavelli